“I’m not a dirty player,” Holliday replied when asked if he crossed the line. “Like I said, I wish I had started my slide a step earlier. When you’re out there in the heat of the moment, you’re trying to keep your team out of the double play. I play hard and was trying to break up a double play. That’s all it comes down to. I’m trying to break up a double play.”

Of course he was. It’s crazy to suggest that Holliday went into second base with any intent to injure. However, that doesn’t change the fact that it was a terribly reckless move, one that shouldn’t have any place on the baseball diamond.

Fortunately for everyone, Scutaro ended up day-to-day with a hip injury instead of being sidelined for months with a blown out knee or a busted ankle. And fortunately for Holliday, there’s simply no precedent in MLB for punishing a player for such a slide. That’s something the league really should take a look at this winter.

A lot of old-school baseball enthusiasts defend this as hard-nosed base running. What it is as reckless disregard for a game that was never meant to be played so viciously. Rules are being implemented in the NFL to make that game safer. Why doesn’t that same mindset prevail in America’s favorite pastime. Face it… Ty Cobb was a psychopath and we don’t need a return to that era. Holiday should be made an example of and hit with a game suspension without pay for flagrantly violating the rules of his sport.